Guided Transfers to .org

When we launched Jetpack a few days ago Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg said to Techcrunch, “If you’re on WordPress you’re part of the family, it shouldn’t matter if we host you or not.”

Today we’re taking that a step further: we’ll actually help you move from WordPress.com to .org.

We’re launching a new upgrade called Guided Transfer where for a $99 one-time fee we’ll handle every detail and tech thingamajig involved in moving your content, theme, domain, and more to any one of the recommended hosts we’ve vetted. (And of course your new site will be Jetpack-powered.)

Of course we love having you here with us at WordPress.com, but we understand that there are situations where a self-hosted WordPress.org site may be a better choice.

Install and configure Jetpack and a few other plugins to provide features that you have been using on WordPress.com.

Configure and test permissions so that you’ll be able to have one-click installs and upgrades.

Switch your domain(s) over.

Provide full support for you on your new WordPress installation for a two week period.

While we’re doing that–you can:

Head to the beach!

Read that novel you’ve been meaning to dig into.

Chase antelope on the savannas of Africa.

Work on that rocket ship that is “just a few tweaks” away from liftoff.

…or do anything else. (Be sure to take pictures and blog it later!) 🙂

Update: Please note that there has been a price change, read our Guided Transfer Guide for more information.

Email Newsletter

Missing out on the latest WordPress.com developments? Enter your email below to receive future announcements direct to your inbox. An email confirmation will be sent before you will start receiving notifications - please check your spam folder if you don't receive this.

Like this:

Related

Next Post

Previous Post

109 Comments

This sounds awesome but does it mean that all of the search traffic I’m getting today will be directed to my self-hosted blog going forward? Will my existing .wordpress.com domain remain in existence? Thanks, Frank

Yes, all of your existing traffic will redirect transparently if you already have a custom URL mapped here at WordPress.com,. We also have a Site Redirect feature if you don’t that accomplishes the same thing.

You will continue to own the existing .wordpress.com blog (and domain) after the transfer. It will remain here (hidden) unless you intentionally choose to delete it.

One of the issues that arise when moving from a wordpress.com free hosted blog to a wordpress.org self hosted install is the loss of stats. The insallation of the stats plugin has not included stats in the past. Will a guided transfer include the transfer of stats?

Another issue is the loss of wordpress.com in-house widgets that are not included in the wordpress.org install. Will a guided transfer include the wordpress.com in-house widgets?

The old stat data is not transferred over, but it will always remain accessible via the WordPress.com dashboard.

Yes, most of the WordPress.com widgets have already been released as plugins. We configure those during the transfer to ensure smooth transition. There are a few that are only available within WordPress.com still, but we will be closing that gap in the future with Jetpack.

Hew, just to go over the first comment in more detail. I have my own domain, which is a Google PageRank 3. But the wordpress.com domain to my blog is a pagerank 5 and I believe I get plenty of traffic from it.

With this transfer, will my .com and personal domain traffic come with me?

I noted a few days ago that Jetpack “will make it easier to migrate from .com to another WordPress host.”

Now it’s even easier.

This is a brilliant move by Automattic. People feeling restricted by WP.com and thinking of moving are more likely to stay with WP, rather than switch platforms. Then there’s the $99 per transfer, plus, I expect, a referral fee from the new host.

I have no idea what Jetpack is, even though I read your announcement twice. And why would you suggest chasing antelope? Don’t they have enough worries about being chased by lions without a bunch of technology addicts running after them?

Excellent! Those needing a little extra help moving house will definitely keep this in mind when the time comes for that big upgrade to self-hosting. But it isn’t clear to me what happens to the Theme we’ve chosen to use here on WordPress.com. Will our Theme be transitioned for us as well to the new home, especially if we’ve purchased a Premium Theme?

The theme you are using at WordPress.com will be installed and configured on the new site with the exception of premium themes. Premium themes purchased at WordPress.com are only valid here at WordPress.com.

This is a very good “upgrade”. Congrats for taking the decision to propose it (this is far more a strategic decision than a technical difficulty). As an opensource web application creator, I don’t think I would need it for myself, but this is definitely a great option for standard users. The price is really low compared to the list of services included in this pack!

This is the way all web services should go: easy to start with a hosting included or host it by yourself (and with the very same features).

What about the premium themes? If I buy a premium theme on WordPress.com, would I keep it if I move to another host?

Thats great, it really is 🙂
However, if we are all big one happy family….why do the blogs/sites who get free hosting miss out on all the great theme choices? After all, it doesn’t matter if you host us or not, right?

Does this service also apply to moving an existing blog from a Blogspot account to a self-hosted WordPress account?

And if so, how do I bring my existing traffic from Blogspot with me? My present blogger account is not a registered domain, but I would be happy to use my web domain to make this move, and consolidate my website and blog into one site. If I could bring my established Blogspot traffic with me.

After doing some pricing about whether or not to make the jump from WP.com to WP.org, $99 is VERY reasonable, especially considering you guys at WordPress know the in’s and out’s of both WP.com AND WP.org.

Question: I have over 800 email subscribers on my WP.com blog. Will I lose all these subscribers in the transition from WP.com to WP.org? Do you have a way of transferring these email addresses to my new WP.org blog? THIS is crucial in my decision to make the jump.

There isn’t a WordPress.org direct equivalent of the WordPress.com email subscription feature at the moment, but you can download a CSV of all your subscribers here at WordPress.com at any time via the Site Stats->Site Subscriptions->Email Subscribers->Download as CSV (at bottom) section of your dashboard.

Jetpack by itself didn’t seem worth the hassle of transferring my own blog. I already did that once, and it involved more tech headaches than I had expected, plus the blog never fully recovered traffic.

Guided Transfer is the final missing piece of the puzzle, I think. Thank you so much. I will be using it soon, I think. Bravo!

Very helpful for anyone with some bucks and no knowledge on how to accomplish this. For me, manual transfer is very fun. However, what will happen to my Search Engine Optimization? I mean, let’s say I have a custom domain name for my wp.com blog and I transferred. Is 301 redirect upgrade purchase the one I’m inquiring about?

I have a word press account, purchased a Photocrati theme and I have few available .com domains with Bluehost. Right now, I am not using word press, I havent figured out a way to load my photocrati theme and set them up on my Blue Host account. Will this $99 set everything up for me?

Winning, tigers blood, Andonis, etc.
I like this! I wanted to move to .org and really didn’t feel like figuring out the specifics of how to do so. I’d gladly pay 99 so I wouldn’t have to figure it all out :3

Top notch. As another of those who have thought using .org for the flexibilty/control it provides, this is welcome news. When I’m ready to take the plunge, the knowledge that there’s a cost-effective helping hand to manage the process is hugely reassuring.

I am sorry, but anyone who pays $99 for this is a fool. Read an eHow guide or something – besides, the experience of transferring .com to .org is a technically enlightening experience – though I’m a tech savvy guy, I wasn’t especially tech savvy in the ways of website hosting, and switching to .org enhanced my knowledge no end. A waste of $99, and a waste of an opportunity and incentive to learn something new.

I’ve been considering starting a new blog at WordPress.com and eventually moving it to WordPress.org. Pointing my future domain name to the WordPress.com blog solves one problem and guided transfers seem to go a long way to solve another one. There’s only one thing keeping me from starting now instead of waiting to just start on WordPress.org. That one thing is comments. When I transfer I would like to use Disqus or possibly Facebook comments. Will guided transfers help with transferring my comments to Disqus or setting up Facebook comments? I don’t think comments can be imported into Facebook’s commenting system yet, but if so would guided transfers include that?

Sounds like a great service – but it also makes me worry that moving over to .org must be a difficult thing to do! – or maybe that’s only if you’ve got a big and complicated site already on WordPress.com. Am hoping moving a very little site that I want to move will be simple!

Hi… just want to find out whether you can also help me find a host if I do this? I don’t know much about technology so am wondering if it is worth it for me to do so – what are the steps to get this going?

I don’t quite understand what the advantage to me would be to upgrade ro WordPress.org, especially I don’t understand what advantage there would be in have having another web host. What I want most of all is my blog to appear on more lists of blogs so that I would have more hits. Would upgrading do this at all?

I think it would be highly beneficial if you or someone published an article on the details of changes and how things like traffic reroutes from .com to .org will be handled so as not to disrupt SEO maturity for many existing .com implementations.

This is perfect. I’ve been trying to figure out how I’ll make that transition if my wildly-unrealistic pipe dreams about my blog’s popularity ever come to fruition. I had already figured out that I would leave behind a redirect “shell” at my old WP-hosted URL, but I knew that moving everything would be difficult for someone who knows only a little HTML and who is completely ignorant of RSS. It looks like this is a very reasonably-priced way to accomplish this task when (if) I’m ready to move. Great idea.

I know that the stats themselves won’t transfer over, but will the new .org version have the same (or similar) site stats format? I find the WP stats format so much friendlier and easier that google Analytics. Any way to have BOTH on the .org version?